


two-headed creature

by thetalkingcrocus



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Episode: s03e07 Digestivo, M/M, Murder, Murder Husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 14:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14570970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetalkingcrocus/pseuds/thetalkingcrocus
Summary: Mason Verger was not prepared for a two-headed creature. When he triumphantly located Hannibal Lecter, when the money-hungry officers brought him, neatly trussed, to his door with the thrilling bonus of a bloodied and swollen Will Graham, Verger didn’t – couldn’t – see all the invisible places where Hannibal and Will intertwined.





	two-headed creature

**Author's Note:**

> Another episode watched, another step towards consumption by this show, another idea of how a scene might have played out. This one requires some suspension of belief re: the dinner scene in Digestivo, the structural integrity of Mason Verger's restraint handcart/wheelchairs, and the ability of forks to be used as weapons. But, I mean, let's be real: more dramatic/not strictly believable fight scenes have happened in canon. This is my second time writing for the Hannibal fandom. I hope you enjoy!

Mason Verger was not prepared for a two-headed creature. When he triumphantly located Hannibal Lecter, when the money-hungry officers brought him, neatly trussed, to his door with the thrilling bonus of a bloodied and swollen Will Graham, Verger didn’t – couldn’t – see all the invisible places where Hannibal and Will intertwined.

 

He hadn’t seen it when Hannibal had presented him to Will and his dogs: instead he saw only caged opponents. He didn’t see a nesting gift, a sliding into each other gift, a deep and terrible joining forged in his blood.   
  
And now Mason was too busy in his own egomaniacal plots to notice. And so he didn’t. The closest analogy he had for Hannibal and Will was himself and Cordell; cruel in their own right, certainly working together, but hardly equal. Not even close. And so, Will became, in Verger’s mind, a frustrating subordinate whose beauty he could steal while he dismantled the real threat and consumed him.

 

It helped that the polizia had found them as they had. Nobody in their right mind would yearn for, would collaborate with a man who hours earlier had been attempting to carve open their skull. Will Graham had never been in anything resembling a right mind; that, and he felt deep in his empath’s bones the desire, the need, the overpowering sensation of losing oneself in someone else. Hannibal couldn’t reach into Will’s head the way Will could slither into the heads of almost anyone. The nearly-loving spoon feeding of broth, the tender slice of the carving saw- these were courtship gestures. Far from Mason’s consumption as domination, this was consumption as union. This was reciprocity, this was intimacy, this was something greater than anyone, most of all Verger, would be able to understand. This was the nurturing of a two-headed creature.

 

And so, when Mason and Cordell arranged a dinner, laid out exquisitely in a mockery of the very tastes that enabled Hannibal to be tracked down, they saw two disarmed hostages instead of one sharp toothed monster. The creature that made Will and Hannibal had arching antlers and heavy lidded eyes, sensual bruises at the wrists, throat, collar. Together they dripped blood from wine stained lips, night-sky-darkness spoke of creation, of becoming. There was a single willed and heady something like love in this creature’s veins. And it had a vicious, vital instinct for survival.

 

As soon as Cordell was within range, Will lunged, like he’d seen his newly acclimatizing strays do dozens of times. His teeth snapped closed on warm flesh, and he twisted his head and pulled. He held the meat in his mouth, tasted the blood there, and headbutted Cordell neatly in the throat. In his mind he saw antlers impaling the soft tissue, could almost feel the warm blood in his hair. Will summoned something inside of him- not Abel Gideon, not any of the monsters he’d profiled, but something rawer and crackling. Something like his essence. Slipping the restraints involved some minor dislocation and hurt like hell but when he threw all his weight forward onto his feet and into a spin, catching Cordell with the full weight of the metal chair still strapped to his legs and waist, it felt like triumph.   
  
Almost like applause, there was a sharp thwacking noise as Hannibal gently weighed the oyster fork in his hand and hurled it forward where it stuck, quivering, in the soft skin beneath Mason Verger’s eye.

 

“We’ll have to cancel your pajama party too then, Hannibal” Mason said, attempting to swivel his chair in the confined space of the ornately decorated, Lecter-inspired table. His false smooth calm ignored Cordell and Will, intending to let the lackeys scrabble while he matched with the real opponent.

 

“Pity.” Hannibal said with a raised eyebrow, and all hell broke loose.

 

* * *

 

 

Hannibal had left Mason for Margot, unconscious and restrained, murmuring something about therapeutic benefits. But Cordell- Cordell they took on together once Verger had been safely incapacitated and bound with the very silk tie he had put on Will. They fought like one creature and when it was done, Hannibal turned to regard Will over Cordell’s corpse, which Will had spread on the table atop shattered glasses and weaponized silverware. They sat side by side. Will’s stubble was dripping with Cordell’s blood, his hands were swollen where he had sustained collateral damage getting out of the restraints, his eyes were bottomless.

 

“Where now?” Will asked, and Hannibal bypassed his question with a question of his own.

 

“What happened to the cheek?”

 

Will looked up at Hannibal, blinking with a strange mixture of pride and nausea. “I… swallowed it.”

 

Hannibal swallowed imperceptibly, and leaned to let his mouth ghost against Will’s. He pulled away and licked the blood from his lips, thoughtful and wanting. Will followed him like the tide and kissed him again, and the taste of blood stirred feelings that he could no longer discern the source of. He closed his eyes, rested his forehead against Hannibal’s shoulder as his mangled hands were attended to with precision and gentleness, something just tender enough to make a lump in Will’s throat incongruous to the traces of swallowed blood there. Hannibal held on to Will’s hand even after he had dealt with the damage as he thoughtfully surveyed their options. His thumb absentmindedly stroked the chapped skin at Will’s knuckles.

 

“We have time. Before Margot finds this. I think…” Hannibal looked with distaste at the sausage presented in a heavyhanded attempt at accompanying Mason’s crude story, “I think I can make us something to eat.”

 

When they left, sore and satiated, a masterpiece of presentation made of Cordell’s body on the surgical table where he had intended to remove Will’s face, a warm meal in their bellies, they walked so close together that they only cast one long evening shadow. Step by step, they disappeared into the dusk.


End file.
